to think -women, what´s gone so wrong?

[isaidlesbonotasbo]

Long time lurker, can´t sit on this one any longer.

Fifty years ago I and many other women fought for equality and womens rights. After a long struggle the western world conceded (OK, only up to a point, still a way to go), but things are so very different now.

Fifty years of books, magazines, tv, movies, pop music, education, the internet, showing us very different templates of how womens´ lives can be.
So why do I read here every day of young women who have chosen lazy, abusive, controlling, or selfish partners. Women who apparently must have such low self esteem that they think they deserve no better? Women from all parts of society.

And not only the pleas from the women who have just woken up to the situation they are in, but almost worse the everyday asides from seemingly contented women as part of other topics, which casually mention how OH, DH, DP ´won´t´or ´can`t´ do such and such, or relly´helps´, or spends endless hours and money on his own hobbies.

Sometimes there´s almost competetive banter re how ¨useless¨ their partners are, bless ´em!

Put aside the very real problems of leaving such relationships once stuck in them, why start them in the first place with all the choices available to us? We don´t have forced or compulsory marriage/partnership. Last time I looked, the Taliban were not in charge nor religious leaders all powerful.

And if the answer is that girls and women are socialised within their family of origin to feel worthless, let´s push the question back at their mothers and grandmothers - feminism did not start last week!

(and don´t get me started on who plays the biggest part in raising,
socialising and entitling these men from their early years....)

No AnyFucker. She's not asking the wrong question. I quote:

"If you are a long time feminist you should understand that you are asking the wrong question

Ask men why they are controlling, lazy, abusive, selfish... don't tell women they have the responsibility for it"

I am also life-long feminist and have fought hard and long for feminism.

Women now have choices.
If they choose a controlling, lazy, abusive, selfish man, it is their choice.

A lot of Women make bad choices.

I was about to type a reply to you, then I realised scallops had it covered a few posts back so I decided to have my sausage butty instead

RtHoGeorgiana. Seems you are breaking a taboo on this board by suggesting that women can do anything to control their own lives, make choices, have the intelligence to look at the world around them aand make mature judgements about prospective partners.

A significant number of women post here about their relationship problems, not only under relationships but elsewhere. I think MN attracts the largest number of women posters in the UK.

Many, many more prefer posting about someones reaction to their neighbours closed curtains than entering a discussion in which they might give each other some insight about a serious problem which leads to two women dying each week.

You know what´s wrong with the accusation ´victim blaming´? It assumes we are victims. I don´t.

AF Scallops mostly endorses my arguements although she seems to think she is saying something very different. Here´s an idea AF. while enjoying your bacon bap why not check out all my posts on this thread and then quote me word for word, and in context, the bits in which I am so very very wrong. Jeeeeeze, I used to respect you as a poster...

AF memory fail on my part. sausage butty

Scallops. can you genuinely not see the difference between saying women are responsible for mens´ behaviour (which I never have), and saying that women are responsible for their own choices?

Petula. Have looked up Karen Ingala Smith who is clearly an amazing woman. But I could find no references about researching the causes of male violence towards women by her. She seems focused on helping women affected by DV and campaigning for the rights of women.

If I am wrong, or you have other sources re research into causes rather than sadly dealing with the effects could you let me know.

RtHonGeorgiana. I find it difficult to understand how vicious, angry, abusive men suddenly according to so many of their partners become like that virtually overnight, for instance when a child arrives.

Have they truly been such paragons of virtue previously? Or could women be taught better regarding low key red flag behaviour such as bad temper, selfishness, inability to show affection outside of sex, the ´lower slopes´ of control etc.

As a recent male poster said, and I am sorry I can`t access his name at the moment, men get praised just for not behaving too badly!

Bruce Twee. apologies for not finding your name.

RtHonGeorgiana. haven´t a clue why there is a strikethrough! It was not intended. It reads as if I am sceptical of what these women say and I don´t want to give that impression at all. I think it is well documented that the arrival of a child can trigger abuse.

OP, my latest post was in direct reply to the post before mine

it wasn't directed at you

you may have started this thread, but actually, it's not all about you

AF Scallops was replying to me not to RtHonGeorgiana, and you apparently were attaching yourself to her comments. You did not mention RtHonG in your post.

What can you mean, the thread is not all about me?!! How can this be?!!(I´m the one getting all the flak btw)

Thanks for the patronising wink.

AF started Reading yet?

topic list at this moment;

Dp..drunk! (always clears up after manchild)

To be pissed off at dp interrupting me (self explanatory)

To ask how can I explain to DH why page 3 was wrong. (self explanatory)

To think in January the heating should be on. (partner complains)

None of these on relationship thread.

None of these women trapped emotionally, financially by current violence, with partners that they cannot leave because of kids etc. Not yet.

Plenty more along soon.

None of these women trapped emotionally, financially by current violence, with partners that they cannot leave because of kids etc. Not yet.

How on earth do you know that?

op, you remind me of a poster that used to be prolific on here

she used a thin veneer of "look! feminism!" to goad other posters and had a victim-blaming agenda

she was banned, I believe

What I can't see is how you can fail to see what you've done to offend so many people, OP. The other thing I can't see is what you're getting out of this thread.

Women who have been in abusive relationships have patiently explained that, guess what, men don't come up to you and say "hey, I'm an abusive twunt, wanna go out with me?" (Well, actually I have had that happen to me once - surprisingly, I did not take him up on his offer). It's a gradual process of subtly undermining your self confidence, shored up by gas-lighting (both from him and on a social level) of "well, everyone argues sometimes", "would you rather be on your own", etc. So by the time the first blow lands (and actually, it can be an emotionally abusive relationship where he never hits you), your self confidence is in shreds. And as many have pointed out, frequently it starts during pregnancy - a time when you are physically, emotionally and financially vulnerable - and surprise, surprise women think they're trapped in the situation.

Your op was straightforwardly victim blaming - "they should just have the guts to walk away, they choose to stay." Since then you've tried to back track and have tried to claim that what you were actually talking about was the social conditions which indoctrinate women into staying in substandard relationships (like you're the first person on this site ever to discuss the way women are conditioned to think they're nothing without a man, or the eroticisation of female submission in our society). And you've actually had the cheek to suggest that this was what your first post said all along and we just misread it.

As I say, what interests me most (because I very much doubt I'm going to get anything sensible out of you, OP) is what you're here for. I can't help but think, reading your responses to posters - the full gamut of posters from the understandably upset and hurt and angry, through to those with a better grasp on sociological complexity and feminism than you've demonstrated in any of your posts - that you're here on the wind up. You're getting off on disagreeing with people for the sake of disagreeing, and worse than that, getting off on upsetting people for the sake of it, all while thinkning that if you slap the label "feminist" on your behaviour, we'll all be fooled into giving you a free pass.

Anyway, I'm out, because I don't see that it's possible to have a conversation with you in which either compassion or intelligence plays any part in your responses.

lucio.

My op said this:

´put aside the VERY REAL PROBLEMS of leaving such a relationship.´

please do not deceive people, or should I say lie, by putting quotes around something I did not say either in my op or elsewhere.

my op was not even about why women STAY in such relationships.

it was about why, with the choices (and I neither meant nor insinuated anything other than choice of men,) that women have, and after three plus generations of feminism, so many still make bad choices.

A fair number of posters agree and/or understand my starting point. So its not just me.

You and others like you could have had your say regarding how relationships start, social conditioning etc as response to my op. Without the name calling, discrediting, patronising. I have listened and replied courteously to everone.

I can´t see the need to attack ad hominem, accuse me of things I provenly haven´t said, try to discredit me with insinuations of trollism, and question my motives for being here. If you think I am a troll, report me.

Someone even insinuated that my name somehow explained what a victim blaming woman hater I must be.

Someone else accused me without a shred of evidence of expecting straight women to chose lesbian relationships instead.

Smell of homophobia around here, sisters?

By the way, after Charlie Hebdo I thought that the civilised consensus was that people had a right, perhaps within certain moral/social, and certainly legal boundaries, to cause offense.

My op did not set out to be offensive, and was considerate and moderate in it´s language. Of course people can disagree and argue. But are women immune from theoretical speculation just because they are women ffs?

I have received hardly any answers from most of you most outspoken posters regarding a number of very specific points I have made.

For about the third time of asking, why doesn´t one of you actually quote directly something I have actually said and respond to that, instead of making stuff up to suit your own agendas.

FFS - likening a debate on aibu to Charlie Hebdo? To coin a phrase, are you on glue? No one has censored you, no one has shot you, we have merely disagreed with you.

Freedom of expression does not mean freedom to demand to be listened to with your audience nodding along sagely and deferring to your every utterance.

ps lucio. by the way, putting words in someone´s mouth, making up things they have not said and then berating them for saying it, assigning them motives for saying things from your own imagination , and denying their words such as feminist which they use for their own self definition...erm isn´t that called gaslighting?

And I´m because I´m here just as you are.

Lucio. I am sorry to say this but you are making yourself look stupid.

This is such a sad thread. I'm really worried that a woman in an abusive relationship is going to read it and feel more to blame for her situation than she already does, and feel that there is little compassion out there for someone in her situation

Historically (and still to this day) Western feminism has only been fighting for a very small, select group of women: middle class and up, mostly White, well educated, able bodied, NT and so on. I can use several quotes from many Western feminists both historically and those lauded today to show how Western mainstream feminism continues to do much of it's work by stepping and erasing the womanhood of other women in their pursuit to get into the boys club (rather than work in solidarity with other women in tearing it down). Western feminism regularly shoots itself in the foot by not recognizing how much it is harming many women while at the same time shooting itself in the foot by trying to play saviour worldwide and getting women killed (see how women's treatment abroad is often used as a rallying cry for violent military industry intervention that for those women they are suppose to be saved by it will likely face more rape and death, not less).

Other groups are having to fight separately (which is why there are dozens upon hundreds of groups that can fall under the feminist group banner, many of which disagree with Western feminism on many things) and are often stepped upon by Western feminism and erased. Disabled women abused by their carers will be told that we should be grateful anyone cares for us and those that cannot be productive in the workplace are very often thrown under the bus for those who want to prove they are 'real' feminists. I've had Western White feminists try to tell me how sexist men of my ethnicity are (using a fantasy version from movies) while also supporting the forced sterilization of my peoples (which still happens and mostly happens to women) and many other women they find beneath them. Poor women of all backgrounds are regularly stepped on - when there was a study a year or so back of a pilot of poor women getting financial help to make breastfeeding easier and help make breastfeeding more compatible with going back to work, many MN Western feminists were saying all sorts of horrible things about those women along the lines that they weren't really good women/mothers if money helped them breasftfeed at all or longer (ignoring how much money helps people do many things). I literally had someone say that they should use plastic storage bags and handpump into there if they can't afford a pump that works for them (ignoring so many issues with that one).

Why are many women failing to meet Western feminist ideals? Big part of it is that those people selling them and their ideals fail us first and erase the lives and experiences of many women. Until Western feminists can deal with the history, tackle the narrow scope of hailed and represented women, and can really work in solidarity with other feminist groups, a lot of people who are only going to see Western feminism (because it gets 99% of representation unless one really looks) aren't going to see gender equality or the fight for it as something they can see themselves in. I don't see myself in Western feminism at all and I am grateful to have found other discussions and groups to rebuild myself and work with as a lot of Western feminist writings and discussions really had me feeling subhuman and I am by far not the only one who has had this experience.

Petula. yes it is a sad thread. But I don´t think for the reasons that you give. One thread among thousands cannot be that powerful.

Women in abusive relationships are given every possible help on this fórum, both emotionally and practically. They are given information regarding WA, and other agencies, child and other benefits, where and how to seek legal advice, etc etc, they are unjudgingly supported and encouraged over and over again, sometimes it seems over lengthy periods. I have even seen posters offer real life support if they happen to live locally, which is amazing.

Unfortunately this seems to preclude the possibility on this fórum of even attempting to approach these issues from any other perspective without being shouted down by the bully girls, the downright liars, the gaslighters, the homophobes and those that apparently just lack reading comprehension skills.

Personally I thought women were bettter than that.

TheSpork. You raise so many very serious questions which deserve their own space for a proper debate,

I am leaving this thread now, not driven away by the bullygirls but because it´s pointless.

Having been out with someone who's very emotionally manipulative I can completely understand why women stay in those kind of relationships or keep going back. Someone told me she thought he was dangerously abusive to me and the fact I couldn't see that meant I needed help. I didn't think it was abuse - he'd never physically hurt me and I know he never would, he's very caring most of the time, does his share of the cooking and house work so how can that possibly be abuse? I was embarrassed to go to Women's Aid or anywhere like that because I felt like I didn't qualify for help. I've seen this in a lot of other women, that if they're not physically hurt then they don't regard it as abuse. Emotional abusers are usually very subtle and put on a different front to the world. My ex was known as a popular, caring, kind man. My own mother who has always proclaimed herself to be a feminist thinks he's wonderful and was so caring to me. I've met other women who said their families didn't believe them if they said their partners were abusive. So if our own families don't believe us then who else will? We start to believe that maybe we're just being unreasonable, maybe we're the ones at fault. My ex was very good at twisting things so that I somehow ended up apologising for things he'd done wrong. Sounds messed up but I believed I was at fault. He intimidated me as well, I never thought he'd hurt me but I was more scared of what he was going to do to himself and others. Believe me, feeling scared of somebody close to you is a horrible feeling and you'd think it would be easier to go but sometimes it was actually easier to stay because at least then I could reason with him.

My parents have a great relationship and as I said I was brought up with feminism. I believe that nobody is immune to ending up in an abusive relationship despite how strong or intelligent you might think you are. I have got mental health problems so I realise that I am probably a magnet for abusers as they can sense vulnerability. It makes it very difficult for me to have relationships now but that's my own issue. I've found through reading here and in life in general that a lot of people compromise in relationships. We might be horrified that a man does no housework but his wife chooses to stay with him because he's a good companion and for financial security. Or a woman might stay with a cheating husband because he's a good dad. I don't know if that's unfeminist because I've known men stay with cheating wives for the same reason. My ex was a jealous man but I loved him and other aspects of our relationship were good so I thought I could handle it. Obviously I was wrong but I think a lot of people think similarly.

isaidlesbonotasbo I think the current trend of needing to 'debate' these kinds of things, rather than real discussion and dialogue, is part of the problem. Debates rarely have anyone really listening or change anyone.

You asked where women have gone wrong, I'm saying that women haven't gone wrong at all, we're living and fighting to survive in a society and in systems like fish in water so its hard to see that was built and is maintained against us and the loudest voice that is meant to be for our liberation - that you said you are part of and fought for - more often steps on us and pushes us to join and support that system and push each other to do so rather than properly supporting each other, tearing the systems of oppression down, and building a world where we can all thrive, not just those that can fit neatly into the system as it is now to thrive by the exploitation and harm to other women.

Women are better than you think simply by surviving and fighting for our lives in this system that would prefer we debate each other to destruction and die at its hands than join together, support each other, and fight back. In OUR society - not far away lands - which leaves people in die in the streets every day when there are more homes than homeless and allows people to starve to death, is it really any wonder that many women put up with less than good to horrible circumstances to survive? Fighting for our rights can only happen after we fight for our lives - the two are connected.

I was very lucky to find someone genuine and kind when I was made homeless at 17 and disabled and have helped other women who were not so lucky, and I feel that Western feminism's current powerhouses would prefer we who cannot be independently wealthy and super productive, who've been at the bottom and feared society has left us to die - often violently, would just disappear rather than complicate their 'circumstances and lives don't matter, you would be a better woman if you would just chooose our way with no real support from us or anyone' rhetoric.

Have just come back to say two things. firstly I have never meant to question individual women as such, as there are a myriad reasons why indivviduals make the choices tht they do.

But women as a class of people in the first world could certainly take more responsibilty for making things change, over and above the tremendous work being done to support women who are currrently living those lives of quiet desperation.

Spork. I agree with you aabsolutely. Maybe I am thinking of the fighting (at times literally) spirits of the Suffragettes who did not just sit around saying ´well it´s up to men to stop withholding the vote from us`, or ´well it´s the Patriarchy, what can we do?´

Do we vote, to we engage, do we stand for election, do we take to the streets? When do we say NO FUCKING WAY!!!

(anyway ignore me, I´m apparently a woman hating, victim blaming non-feminist.)

the Suffragettes where not representative of all women - they where largely middle class educated women who didn't work

it could be argued that women's contribution to the war effort in WW1 was what secured the vote

also women are not a 'class' - white middle class women have way more choices than poor working class or BEM women generally

you points are too simplistic

^it could be argued that women's contribution to the war effort in WW1 was what secured the vote"

It may have secured the vote, but had there been no women's suffrage movement already in place, who had been actively campaigning for several years before the war, no one would have considered giving women the vote at all.